About this project

McRoboFace

£3,511

236

backers

**After the KickStarter campaign has ended, you can pre-order or purchase your McRoboFace here**

Video Credits: Francesco Vannini (@GarageTechTweet)

McRoboFace - Add Character to your Creations!

We all like adding blinky LEDs to our electronics creations, whether it is a robot, weather station or something that reads and displays sensor data. Now with McRoboFace you can add emotions to everything at the same time as adding blinkies.

All the 17 RGB LEDs are fully addressable and can be controlled by most processors in the field using standard "neopixel" code. This includes Raspberry Pi, Crumble, Arduino, ESP8266, micro:bit and Codebug.

Pictures of Prototypes in the Wild

Tim Morley

Tim and his 10 year old son are making a great robot project using a Raspberry Pi, Picon Zero and McRoboFace.

Robin Newman has designed a circuit to extract the volume from an audio signal so that his McRoboFace can sing along to Bach! Also, the clip below shows 2 McRoboFaces talking to each other, using SonicPi. How cool is that?

You can now select a pledge reward that includes the components shown in the video for the Singalong project:

400 point Breadboard

Capacitors and resistors

Breadboard friendly trimming potentiometer

3.5mm stereo jack lead

Male-Female Jumper leads

Pushbutton with cap

Note that the Picon Zero is NOT included in the kit. Other ADC boards for the Pi are also available

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You can use McRoboFace to make programming the BBC micro:bit even more fun:

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Replay with sound

Play with sound

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Why not code your micro:bit and McRoboFace to react to being shaken or tapped? Maybe it should turn blue if it gets cold, or red when hot?

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What's in a Name?

When the prototype was shown, there were a number of comments that the fun name "McRoboFace" was simply "too silly" :-(

So every backer has one vote to choose the final name for the product. This name will be printed on the back of the PCB and on the packaging. You can choose from

McRoboFace

RoboFace

Each backer, whatever the pledge level, gets one vote. If you want to help select the name, then please pledge! When you have pledged, send a direct email with your vote.

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Technical Details

McRoboFace has 17 fully addressable LEDs. These will be WS2812B or SK6812 (fully compatible products).

McRoboFace is made on a White PCB with ENIG (gold) plating for reliability

Dimensions: 50 x 40mm

3 mounting holes for M2.5 screws

Mouth comprises 14 LEDs, each 3.5mm square

Nose is a single LED, 3.5mm square

Two LEDs for eyes, both 5mm square

4 Pads to connect: 5V, Ground, Data In and Data Out (for daisy-chaining to another McRoboFace or other "neopixel" strip)

Each McRoboFace will be supplied fully assembled and we will include a 4-way right-angle male header which you can solder on if required. This makes it easy to plug directly into a breadboard.

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Why Run a Kickstarter Campaign?

Although this is a simple project, we need to have a fully automated process in place to manufacture them to ensure that all pixels are working correctly from the start. To do this, we need to place a minimum order of 1000 units. If you want this product to be available, please support it and pass the message on.

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Risks and challenges

This is actually a simple project and the prototypes are fully working. The manufacturer has already quoted for various quantities and we can go ahead as soon as funding is confirmed. We will be able to ship within about 4 weeks of placing the order with the manufacturers.

4tronix is a successful business and already has the systems in place for shipping worldwide, so we don't expect any issues there.

The manufacturer will test every pixel on every unit made. The test includes separate Red, Green and Blue as well as a combined White test. There should be no problems with faulty pixels, but we will also do a random test at 4tronix as a double-check before we ship.